1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming device that collects a waste toner through a waste toner collecting container.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming device collects a transfer residual toner on an image carrier from the image carrier through a cleaning device as a waste toner. To this end, the image forming device requires a waste toner collecting container to store the waste toner. A replacement frequency of the waste toner collecting container can decrease (effective utilization of resources) by increasing its capacity. However, as the size of the main body is recently reduced, there is a limit to increasing the capacity. For this reason, the replacement frequency of the waste toner collecting container recently tends to increase. It leads to results opposite to a long lifespan and resource saving demanded from the world. In order to achieve longer lifespan or more resource saving even in the small waste toner collecting container, studies on effective use of a space inside the waste toner collecting container or reduction in the number of components have been conducted.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-257813 discloses a technique of installing a rotation member in the waste toner collecting container and spreading the waste toner in the waste toner collecting container. A technique of determining whether or not it is full by detecting a rotation of the rotation member is also disclosed.
Further, for example, Japanese Patent No. 3183733 discloses a technique of detecting fullness of the waste toner collecting container by installing the rotation member in a waste toner transport path and detecting a load applied to the rotation member from the waste toner because the waste toner collecting container is full of the waste toner.
However, in the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-257813, since the rotation member rotates only in one direction, the waste toners may be unevenly stacked on one side of the waste toner collecting container.
Further, in the technique disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 3183733, even when the waste toners are unevenly stacked on one side, it may be determined that the waste toner collecting container is full.